A look back at our Currencies of the Day

The yen is the 3rd most-traded currency on the FX market after US dollars and the euro. This is the first ever version of the 1 yen banknote, as issued by the Empire of Japan in 1873.

HONG KONG DOLLAR

The HKD is the 13th most-traded currency in the world, and Hong Kongers have a wide array of thrillingly abstract slang for various amounts of money:
$10 – green crab
$100 – lump of water
$1,000 – golden bull
$10,000 – skin
$1,000,000 – ball
Which could conceivably be the menu at a Heston Blumenthal restaurant.

SOUTH AFRICAN RANDThe ZAR was introduced on Valentine’s Day 1961, replacing the South African pound with decimal currency. The transition was advertised with the catchy “Decimal Dan the Rand Cent Man” jingle, of which you can hear a snippet in this British Pathé archive footage suffused with uncomfortable post-colonial overtones.

POUND STERLINGThe GBP is the 4th most-traded currency in the world. In turns out the musical approach to promoting decimalisation was internationally popular; when the sterling’s turn came in 1971, variety performer Max Bygraves heralded the changeover with an unimaginatively-titled song.

NEW ZEALAND DOLLAR
The NZD of course had a jingle to usher in decimalisation. Unfortunately, only 10 seconds of it are available. So instead, here is a video of Mr Dollar – a sinister talking banknote that infotained New Zealanders about decimal currency while playing himself like a cello.

CANADIAN DOLLARThe Canadian Dollar is the the 5th most held reserve currency in the world. In 2007, Canada minted a 100kg solid gold coin the size of a pizza, with a face value of $1m. One of them sold for $4m in 2010, which is enough to buy one million pizzas.

All of these currencies are among the 19 you can exchange with us for an extremely low 0.2% fee. So what are you waiting for? Time to trade a 100kg gold coin for half a Hong Kong ball.

P.S. How to win a portable phone charger
You can enter on either Facebook or Twitter. For Facebook simply comment on our post hashtagged #CurrencyComp with your favourite currency and then like our page.

James is freemarket’s Chief Commercial Officer. He has a history of finding new ways to solve age-old financial challenges and was responsible for launching some of the first online money transfer and prepaid card initiatives in Europe.